#author:Herugar Bolger #title:The Fell Winter #types:shire In the year of 1311, winter had come surprisingly early. A strong north-eastern wind brought the Shire a rather cold fall and the first snow in early Blotmath. This led to an extremely poor harvest. At 1st Yule the snow was at a Hobbits height. The entire Shire struggled to keep its roads clear, despite its exhausting efforts to clear them. However, the 2nd Yule celebrations did not come short this year. On the contrary the scarcity of food forced a lot of farmers to slaughter parts of their livestock. However, the cold made most of the beverages freezing during transport, potent cherry liqueur excepted, sometimes it even damaged or broke the barrels. Some taverns even had to start the new year dry. For the fourth time only in the Shire's history the Brandywine River froze completely. White wolves crossed the river from the east and attacked the Livestock. Some Hobbits were also attacked. The wolves caused the first usage of the Horn-Call of Buckland at the 14th Solmath. They eventually left the Shire at winter's end and went back from where they came. Even though the Shire was threatened by famine few died of starvation. Since Rethe, even though the snow was at more than a man’s height, men in dark green and in hoods brought food in the Shire from the west. Rumour says that the Grey Wanderer had a certain influence on it. In late Rethe the wind turned to the west and snow started to melt in Astron. This caused some floods in the Southfarthing as the Brandywine overflew its banks. Some pipe-weed fields got flooded. Spring and summer 1312 were warm and full of abundance.